Anti-gay Acts In U.s. Widespread

June 08, 1990|By Shari L. Mannery, Special to the Tribune.

WASHINGTON — More than 7,000 acts of hate, ranging from verbal harassment to physical violence, were committed against homosexuals and lesbians last year, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force reported Thursday. Of those acts, nearly 1 in 5 occurred on college campuses.

Kevin Berrill, director of the task force`s Anti-Violence Project and author of the group`s annual report, told a Capitol Hill news conference that 2,322 of the acts consisted of vandalism, intimidation or physical violence and 4,709 were acts of verbal harassment. The figures were compiled by 119 organizations and individuals in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

North Carolina led the nation in anti-gay violence with 1,204, followed by Texas with 997, California (563), Illinois (529) and Ohio (387).

Nearly 20 percent of the acts occurred on college campuses, Berrill said. Last year`s figure was slightly lower than the 1988 total of 7,248, but Berrill said that most anti-homosexual crimes were not documented because of a ``lack of systematic data collection throughout most of the U.S.``

Berrill and Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), who also attended the news conference, praised the Federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which President Bush signed into law in April. The act, which will go into effect in January, requires the federal government to collect data on crimes based on race, religion, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

But Berrill and Cranston pointed out that the law would be less effective without increased reporting by victims of such acts and more participation by state and local governments.

The District of Columbia and 21 states have hate-crimes laws, but only nine states and the district have clauses in their laws that cover sexual-orientation crimes, Berrill said.